Sarah Ockhuis

Sarah Ockhuis was born and raised in Algeria and attended school in Clanwilliam until grade 7. She describes the past as being difficult and very different, and her parents telling of tougher times working hard to earn a living.

Sarah Ockhuis speaks about how life was in Algeria when she was growing up, her parents living in a thatch-roof house that got very cold in winter, the games they played as children, and New Year’s celebrations.

Sarah Ockhuis is married with four children – three boys and a girl. She was born and raised in Algeria and attended school there. She went to Clanwilliam to complete school until grade 7, after which her parents could not afford for her to attend any longer. These were difficult years, as her father was retrenched from working for Forestry and her mother worked on the farms. The forestry department did not allow children to live with their parents if the children did not work, so Sarah moved to Cape Town to work. They lived in a thatch-roofed house that got very cold in Algeria. The shops were far away and it was difficult to buy groceries, but Sarah says God was there for them. Her childhood was fun – they played games such as hockey, jump rope and hide and seek. The times were very different from today and a lot tougher. Her parents also told her stories of their difficult years growing up and working. Over New Year’s they would dance until the sun came up.

I give permission, I give permission that I can speak on the radio. My name is Sarah Ockhuis, I am married, four children have been born out of my marriage, one girl and three boys. I grew up in Algeria, I was born here, I went to school here. Later I was transferred to Clanwilliam to the secondary school, where I advanced up to Grade seven, After that I couldn’t go and study further, because it was difficult years. My father, he didn’t work, he was ill, he was discharged from Forestry, those years it was Forestry, not Nature Conservation and my mother, then had to go work amongst the farmers. Those years. They couldn’t let me go and study. And I had to go work, because those years we couldn’t live with our parents. Those years were in the apartheid years, it was difficult years. I had to go work, I went to work in the Cape, I wasn’t allowed to sit with my parents without working. There I went to work for a certain time and then came back again. Then I lived with my parents, I couldn’t live with them for long, then the current forester that was here those years came to say that we may not live with our parents, we have to go and work. Then my father went to look for another place where we could live, but during that time my brother-in-law was working here and he intervened and went to speak to Gordon (?? 02:01), he gave permission that my father and my mother can remain again.

We lived in a reed roofed house. It was quite cold and it was difficult. We had to walk far to the nearest shop. They had to walk far to the nearest shop to buy food for themselves to put on the table for us, but the Lord carried us through.

Interviewer: Say now, tell us a bit how tant Sarah played, which games at the schools, and so forth.

We went to school nicely here in Algeria. We played hide-and-seek, we jumped rope and we played, uhh, hockey and rotten egg, as it was called those years. Those kind of games we played at school.

[whispers]

What else?

Interviewer: Tant Sarah, tell us about tant Sarah’s father and mother and then, where did they live, became?

My father and them also lived here in Algeria, the name of the place was Withoogte. There they lived. We could, they couldn’t live there any longer, because there were other houses here into which they had to move. My son, ag, my father’s son took over, he got a house from Forestry and he, later we went to live with him, my parents.

Interviewer: How does that time differ from today’s life?

The life of that time differs a lot from today’s life, I could see, those years it was very difficult, it was not like today, like today’s children grow up. It was difficult years. It differs a lot from today’s life.

Interviewer: Can Ant Sarah maybe remember stories that they told in that time? Ant Sarah’s mother and them, or so….? Remember any stories?

Yes, my mother and them always told us, how difficult it was for them. They told us how they suffered and how far they had to walk. They couldn’t go to school, because they lived too far away from the school. My parents couldn’t read and write, and we just also, uhh, they made fire flat on the ground and baked bread in pots. It was not like today, that we have stoves. They had outside ovens in which they baked bread.

Interviewer: How was it that time over New Year and Christmas?

That time’s New Years, what I can remember, was not like the one’s of today. The people danced through until the morning and they, Christmas they sang songs, carols, but the old, the New-, the Old Years Day they danced into the New Year into. Those years. That I can remember.